Would you start taking some medicine without first consulting a doctor?

No this isn't about meds, but the idea still holds. The Bush administration has gotten to the bottom of the barrel (hit bottom quite a while ago) and kept digging. The idea of making policy ideas that are contratary not only to what experts in the rest of the world say but also contrary to what experts in your own country say just amazes me. To add insult to dibilitating injury surveys taken are saying that many in the scientific (almost 50%) say they feel pressure *not* to publish/do/say things that run contrary to the Bush policy machine. So swallow hard people, its going to take a while to reverse this kind of damage.

Amusment with Proxies

I am constantly irritated with the Thai governments’ tendency to censor and meddle with my attempts to surf the web so as a result I have been learning more than I ever wanted to about using proxies. Everything from transparent & anonymous ones, to programs that help you use multiple proxies, to daisy chaining local (proxomitron) and remote proxies, ways to get to blocked proxy lists (Google cache) and am working on figuring out tunneling... sigh.

Anywho, I find myself having to switch remote proxies almost daily and most of the time they are not in the US so sometimes I get errors in the language of the country where the proxy is located, or Google assumes I am from some other country, etc etc etc.

Testimony to its popularity - NPR & Podcasting

I think i said before at some point that NPR should so be doing podcasts (here, and here); the instant i found "All Things Considered" I subscribed only to have it stop a few days later. About 2 months later i come accross the podcastdirectory (one of many sites that list podcasts) and on its list of all time most popular podcasts? yup, "All Things Considered". So going on for (I think) less than a week, and 2 months after it was taken off it still remains the 1 of the 3 most popular podcasts. I heard that "it was too much for them" I don't know if they are refering to bandwidth (I have heard that is what made them cut thier streams short after 9/11) or what, if bandwidth then why not torrents? Anyway, I still look forward to the day I can listen to my fav NPR shows on my MP3 player, on my time, not some fixed time.

Typical corruption...

The king of swaziland has now outlawed the press from taking pictures of his limo fleet. The manic corruption that takes place in some of the worlds poorest nations will never cease to amaze me.

Third world countries need photo/bio degradable plastic bags

I'm not sure which is more unrealistic, getting people not to litter or getting countries to use photo/bio-degradable plastics (especially plastic bags). The perfect example would be Cambodia. In truth I have never seen a place with more litter (outside of a dump) but upon closer inspection you will see that most of it is plastic bags. Khmer are *really* good about recycling stuff they can actually get money for (testimony to the dire poverty), I tested this multiple times by placing plastic and glass bottles out in plain view only to have them swiped in less than 20 minutes, where as plastic bags would never move. In the rivers, streets, yards I would see plastic bags everywhere. The best thing would of course be not to have them, use paper or cloth but that is probably the most unrealistic.

In the US many grocery stores (especially the larger chains) use photo (will breakdown in light) or bio (microorganisms can break it down) degradable plastics; I think this is still a really poor idea in countries of comparable wealth but changing developed countries can sometimes be harder than changing the developing countries.

Clean Squatting Toilet

Clean Squatting Toilet
Originally uploaded by gaikokujinkyofusho.

Squatting Toilets are nothing new to me, tons of them in Moldova. They are all over here as well, they are cleaner than some of the outhouses I found in Moldova and this one was particularly clean. Squat, do your business, then scoop some water into the toilet for a flush.

Google Cheat Sheet

I just came across the "google cheat sheet", pretty cool, it tells me alot of what i already knew about but also some new things i didn't. Here is a short list:

1. OPERATOR EXAMPLE
2. CALCULATOR OPERATORS
3. ADVANCED OPERATORS
4. GOOGLE SERVICES

That stuff may or may not be useful to you but I use some of it quite often.

Hypocrite

Ok, so the president smoked weed, I can think of worse things, but not only does it add to the list that already has (though unproven one way or another) cocaine, (totally prooven) drunk driving, and shirking military duty on it but it makes him a hypocrite (again), the tapes that everyone is talking about now (not that it matters, he is on office and ain't leaving). "In the tape, Bush mocks former Vice President Al Gore -- who fought him for the presidency in 2000 -- for admitting he smoked marijuana." A friend of mine who has political views that are night and day from my own once said he "just didn't trust him", him being Gore. Gore was boring, lacking charisma, and a goodie goodie... but i really wish he had won, the world would be a better place.

"Because I can"

I had always liked that phrase, until recently. I was reading a bit about John Gilmore and his privacy work. He sounds like a borderline conspiracy theorist at first but I thought about it a bit. Remember the parents saying "because I said so..." when you were little? I remember a neighbor talking about his kid who had just gotten to the "reasoning stage" who asked him simply "why?" the father was stumped. Looking at (and sometimes being the victim of) all the government "security" really makes me wonder sometimes. Most people just scoff and say "I'll do it for the extra protection" but is it really extra protection? 15 years ago if i told you that i could find out where you live, get your phone number, and produce an aerial photo of where you were living in about 10 minutes you would think i was the Gestapo or something but its a reality that has been introduced bit by bit so we really don't "feel" it. Now we have to cough up ID for every freaking thing and for some (me) its making me grow older faster. This is just a rant, being one person who isn't even in the US right now gives me a (false?) sense of security but who knows... sigh.

Panoramics, PanoTools and PT Gui keep getting sweeter

Damn, just found out and figured out the "color balancing" option in PT Gui (Note: there is an open GUI as well, refer to Hugin and Panorama Tools Open GUI). I would have saved a ton of time if I had found out about that alot earlier. Before I had been using photoshop and and "match color", and before that trying to balance them manually! (ugh). Oh well better late than never.

Internet access as a public service

There is continued talk about internet access to be provided as a public service. To me this sounds like a stretch. Why not have offered telephone access as a public service? To possibly answer my own question, perhaps it is that the Internet has more uses than telephony, like VoIP telephony, access to tax info (including submission), phone books (up-to-date and less cost to provide), pay tickets/fines (potentially cheaper than physically doing it) etc. I think there is already a community in Georgia that has this, and Philadelphia (or is it Pennsylvania) is thinking about doing it. But for whatever reason (the pessimist in me?) every time I hear about some place offering internet access as a public service I just start to wonder how realistic it is.

Whiter Lips

WhiteLips
Originally uploaded by gaikokujinkyofusho.

This is just an example of the quest-to-be-ligher fanatisism in parts of Asia. Don't laugh too much, remember in the US we have "Coppertone"!

Searching and Search Engine wishlist

Google is my fav, kinda obsessive about it, guess the lack of graphics (a plus), speed, and reasonable accuracy of results are the main reasons but its far from perfect. Clustering is a big thing and sorting is another and neither is something that google seems to have much (if any) of. I did find software that only works with IE that will group google listings together, but is still slower than google and doesn't "feel" convinient (don't ask why)

I have found Clutsy, and a vivisimo (which run clutsy, and again, this only works with IE and is still slower than google), nice in that it groups/clusters sites; that helps save a bunch of time but at the same time both services are slow.

I heard of Snap but it seems they have some "issues" but can't remember what, after having gone to the site I can say its a bit on the slow side but I like the clustering (is everyone *except* google doing this?) and the ability to sort on the fly, very nice.

At the moment the best thing I have found is Copernic Agent Professional which costs mad amounts of money (not worth it, just use a combination of google, snap, and clutsy [or for more results than clutsy use the vivisimo toolbar]) and requires either an Internet2 conneciton or lots of patience. It will search multiple search engines, cluster results, take out multiple enteries, summarize, analyze, etc your results, its the Rolls-Royce of regular web search at a Pinto speed.

Watching fishies

Just a thought. There is a place near where I live that has a small fish pond tucked away in a corner. I take a shortcut by there on my way to work and its kinda relaxing to just stare at them every once in awhile. I never really got it for the fish in a tank (still don't) but somehow this is a bit different. At the moment it has two big (multiple meals per fish) fish and a truckload of tadpoles.

NOTE: Crap! I sent this like yesterday and set it to *not* post but save as draft, apparently that didn't work. Ok will edit.

Computers and distractions

Computers are supposed to increase productivity, and i think they do but there is also the anti-productivity side of computers, the distractions they can pose. Things like weather and email alerts, IM, little games, update popups (fortunately not an issue for me), cool little apps (huge issue for me) and of course email itself. For ADD posterchildren like myself these things are great amusment and a help of sorts (admittedly a help i can live without). There is an area called cognitive technology research, this is defintely something i really need to look into.

Google video Search!!!

Remember (assuming you read this blog on a semi-regular basis) my posting about yahoo having a beta video search tool? Yeah, I said something like "Google's falling behind" I guess they are still behind in the sense that they didn't come out with it first but I heard fromEngadget that they now have video search too. Its pretty cool, you could (haven't tried it yet, bandwidth is crap today) search for a news report on a certain topic, or a bunch of other things! Kudos guys! Next (when the connection gets better) I want to try compare the two and see who comes up with more relevant hits, should be interesting.

Two "Blog Networks" is all that i really need.

Yes folks, the "Gawker.com" and the "Weblogs Inc" networks have it all. Cool travel sites (Gadling & Gridskipper, addictive gizmo sites (Engadget & Gizmodo) amusing (and in the case of the gawker network, polictially incorrect hilarious, writing) auto blogs (not as interesting for me), "life hacks", real everyday hacks, and tons more. I'm now set!

Late thought but still...

Was listening to an archived NPR interview with Andy Rooney. They asked him about bush and his military service and his reply was that "if i thought my dad could have gotten me some slack them i woudl have done the same thing. I guess i can agree with that until that same person starts a war having shirked responsibility himself" well said.

US becomes former soviet republic!

Ok, its not quite that bad since the dude was actually released but still, what a crock!!! This guy and othere were dismissed *after* all the bush stuff was said and done. It really makes the ole' viens-in-the-neck swell just thinking about this. That monkey talks about freedom constantly when he is constantly reducing our freedoms (with the exception of many larger businesses freedoms).

Flagrant Violations of Accepted Sanitation...

Well, just got back from lunch on the street. Pickings were thin since #1 its Sunday and #2 I didn't feel like walking to the main street. So the food stuff I got wasn't great but filled me up, the drinkable goodies is why I am posting though.

I think I have mentioned before how you can get "Chai Yen" (aka Thai Tea in the US) and iced coffee around here for dirt cheap well there is a hidden cost. Actually maybe this is a cost I pay all the time but only paid attention to this time.

The lady was making the Thai Tea for me, flies everywhere, and a fly made its way into my tea as she was making it. Not an eyelash was raised, she just fished out the offending insect flicked it off the spoon, and kept going... Sigh. I wish I hadn't seen that but oh well.

Blogjet

This is to test some software called “Blogjet” just wanted to see if it would make posting any eaiser (I hope it works offline)

Khmer Recycling

Khmer Recycling
Originally uploaded by gaikokujinkyofusho.

I had an old pack (which i am now missing a bit) and bought a new pack in Phnom Penh (which i am not liking its whimpy zipper so much). Well i wanted to make sure that my old pack was put to good use, kinda recycled Khmer style so we put it outside by the trash and waited. It wasn't 10 minutes before one of the people that usually dig in trash for recyclables comes by and takes it, here is step by step photos of it.

Kiss off?!

Yes, today has been a pretty crappy day but the thing that caught me at a particularly bad moment was "American Slamming". It doesn't matter if you are Asian, Black, or "stereotypical white", if you say you are American then don't be surprised if someone starts to slam the US. Most of the world, especially Europe, associates Americans with Bush. If you read this at all I think you will notice that I don't particularly like Bush but I get pretty damn tired of hearing people lump all Americans together as "Bush supporters" who support overthrowing regimes, bully politics, and general asinine type practices. He won by like 51% people, so there is about 49% that didn't support him. If you really want to make people do something you don't like then start critisizing them, seems to work. The more the US is criticizing the more defensive Americans (and Bush) are going to get, doesn't matter if they support Bush or not, almost no one likes having their country repeatedly slammed. To rub it in our faces is not going to do anyone any good, Bush is the big bully is town that no one (and in many cases no group) is going to be able to beat up, but if you give the bully sh*t then he is going to deliberately try and piss you off, and probably get away with it. I am sorry Bush is president but get off our (the people that didn't vote for him) asses. Don't slam America, slam Bush.

Idea for Google/Yahoo news

Heres and idea, when doing news searches on google or yahoo news (or any other news site for that matter) how about having the option to give weight to different terms? Something like this:

You want to find articles about how aquaculture has affected the coastline on Indonesia so to *try* and cover all your bases you use a string like this:

aquaculture (coastal OR mangroves OR environment OR coast) (damage OR destruction OR catastrophe OR contamination OR deterioration OR devastation OR marring OR pollution OR ravage OR ruin OR ruining OR wrecking) Indonesia

Its long clunky and still hardly gives me what I am looking for. Now there are probably boolean/database geeks out there that could find this no problem, but I am not one of those geeks and at the moment don't have access to the greatest databases right now. With the above
string I get mostly general stuff that refers mostly to the Tsunami disaster and only mentions Indonesia in passing. What if i could tell the search engine to give more weight to aquaculture and Indonesia? I guess I already have saying the returned article must have Indonesia and aquaculture in it but perhaps the search engine could go a bit further and say measure the number of times the words i wanted weighted are mentioned or if those words are in the titles etc; I kinda thought it already does this but in looking at the results i get back I am kinda doubting that is the case. Google/Yahoo guys, if you are listening know that there is at least one person out there who would like this area improved!

Finally, "fair trade" for developing countries

I just saw a piece about the EU is taking measures (or so they say) towards giving developing countries preferential treatment; that is lowering tariffs etc against the developing countries commodities. I think there are fewer "aid" type things that can help a country along than to encourage its industry, aid is spoon feeding in many cases.

Many government (especially the EU, USA, and Japan) are unforgivably notorious about protecting their own (comparatively expensive) industries from the lower cost products from the developing countries WHILE telling the developing countries that they should reduce their
own tariffs.

Really, its just the big economic powers leveling the playing field, they are just making their own industries compete *fairly* with the industries of the developing countries.

That said other things need to be done as well. Allowing fair entry into these large markets is a *huge* step but they also need to help these countries fight corruption and improve environmental friendly technologies both being things that can get out of control in unchecked capitalism.